trophy wife (1961)

[Ben Zimmer]

My latest Wall Street Journal column is on the disparaging history of
the term "trophy wife": http://bit.ly/trophybz

(If paywalled, try Googling for "Decades of Scorn for Trophy Wives":
http://goo.gl/bWlnFg )

"Trophy wife" is dated by OED3 (Mar. 2014 update) to 1973. As I
mention in the column, I've dated it back to 1961, when it appeared in
Phyllis I. Rosenteur's book _The Single Women_. While I haven't seen
the full text of the book, I've seen syndicated excerpts in a couple
of newspapers. Here's one such excerpt:

---
_Arizona Republic_, Dec. 3, 1961, p. F11, col. 3
Variations on this theme [of The Convenience-Wife] include the
Hostess-Wife of a businessman who entertains extensively and seeks a
higher-level home-branch version of his secretary; the Trophy-Wife --
the woman who was hard to get because of birth or wealth or beauty --
to be kept on exhibition like a mammoth tusk or prime Picasso; the
Show-Case-Wife, chosen for her pulchritude and constantly displayed in
public places, dripping in mink and dangling diamonds; and the Company
and Commuter wives who already are living legends.
A percentage of such wives, of course, aspired to be thus acquired,
but many who only wished to be possessed as women find themselves,
instead, possessions.
---

The same text appeared in the _Winnipeg Free Press_, Dec. 12, 1961, p.
10, col. 4.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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